While not strictly a “journalism” issue this is easily a freedom of speech and expression issue.

Wired Magazine reports that a hacker — traced back to Iran — obtained legitimate web certificates for some of the top sites on the Internet. What that means is the hacker could set up fake pages for Google and Yahoo. A visitor’s browser would have accepted the certificate, giving the hacker access to the visitor’s information.

The government of Iran, like any other dictatorship, is mindful of how the Internet can be used to subvert it. That is why Iran has poured a lot of money and effort into controlling the Internet within its borders and using the Internet to track down Iranian dissidents outside the country.